Accidental Tea
by Kataoi
Summary: One of the last things Clara wanted to be doing on her day off was running around town in search of a puzzle piece that could lead to the swallowing of the planet. The absolute last thing she had wanted to do was to run into her family and accidentally re-introduce them to the Doctor.


Based upon a Tumblr prompt. And there's no actual tea consumption in this so I apologize for any folks who feel misled.

* * *

Seriously, it would have been easier if she could keep him on a leash.

There was something about being in an older body that just made the Doctor all the more energetic; maybe it was to spite his appearance or maybe that was how Time Lords worked, who knew. She didn't, at least not in her present state. (Maybe the echo of her on Gallifrey knew. That would be nice information to channel.)

Regardless of how those things worked, it didn't change the fact that the Doctor was tugging at Clara's arm and seemingly doing his best to knock her into pedestrians on the sidewalk as they hurried through the crowded streets. Regular old modern day London should not have been inciting this much panic in her, but with the Doctor not paying attention to what was around him? Terrifying.

Though to be fair, he wasn't all that different from those glued to their smartphones. Especially the part where she had to slam on the brakes and yank _his_ arm back.

"_Doctor!_" Clara shouted above the crowds and the traffic, stumbling as his weight threw into her. He snapped his head up and twisted to face her, turning his arm upright and managing to not only stop her fall, but pull her up.

"Are you alright?" he asked as she swung up and hugged his arm out of relief. Clara took a moment to inhale before releasing her grasp and glaring up at him.

"Are you _paying attention?_" she scolded, voice nearly cracking. The Doctor paused before lifting his other arm up, as if the device in hand answered her question. It did, but not in the way he was intending.

"Yes. Two more blocks and -"

"I meant to the _road_, and to the _people_ – you're going to get us killed."

"Ah, but I haven't." He grinned slightly, bending down a touch and shaking the gadget next to his face. "Eh? Doin' pretty good I think." His attention diverted elsewhere, eyes darting to look out at the road. "Now, there's two pieces left to go, and Kate says UNIT has the other on track, so we're just responsible for this one, but Iiiiiiii have a feelin' we're going to called upon for that too."

A scavenger hunt was not how Clara was hoping to be spending her day off, especially when the hunt for pieces of a weapon that was threatening to open a sink hole large enough to swallow the Arctic Circle before sucking the rest of the planet with it and opening up some sort of transdimensial portal in their section of the Milky Way. But Kate seemed rather calm about it. _"Sounds like a Tuesday,"_ she said with a shrug before deploying her squad. Yeah, comforting. Clara felt no more at ease when the Doctor and head-of-scientific-research-director Stewart began placing bets on who would win the hunt, and although they were offered assistance, he had just thrown his arm around Clara with a devious grin. _"Just need my one! You up for the challenge?_"

It was one of those days.

The crosswalk blinked its okay for humans to use, and the Doctor took off before Clara had much of a chance to process the movement around her. "Urgh – _Doctor!_" she yelped again, jumping forward and grabbing his free hand, wondering if it would be _so_ out of place if she one day began hooking him into a harness she could tie a rope to. With his eyes glued to the screen of the device in hand, she was surprised when his fingers clenched tightly around her knuckles.

"Are you worried about the fate of today?" he asked nonchalantly, his eyes darting up just fast enough to side-step an coming cyclist, his arm bracing to compensate for what the sudden movement would do to Clara's balance. She remained upright even as her feet tangled, but was able to keep on course.

"Of course I'm worried, why would I not be worried? It's kind of my planet that hangs in the balance."

"But are you _worried_-worried?"

"Contrastive reduplication?"

"What? It's a thing. You know, like having to ask for soy milk or milk-milk."

She scoffed, which hid a laugh. "Coffee again?"

The Doctor deliberately averted his gaze. "It's _really_ tasty Clara, I don't know if you understand this and it's certainly new to _me_."

She bit her thumbnail to mask her giggling, though it didn't quite succeed. The Doctor adjusting to his tastebuds was strange, but certainly amusing. "You only say that because of how much sugar you put in there – Doctor you could buy out the economy of Hawaii with your voracious consumption of sugar cane."

"It's all about the _concoction_, of course I put sugar in there – how something can go from alkaline bile to bliss with the mere addition of dairy and sweets is one of the great secrets of the universe."

"So you're saying the head of scientific research drinks alkaline bile?"

"She has the guts for it."

"Literally."

The Doctor glanced back at her, beaming. "Proper use of the word literally, ten points Miss Oswald."

She raised an eyebrow, but smiled. "Wouldn't be able to justify my job otherwise."

The device in the Time Lord's hand began to ring. The device, it was probably worth mentioning, had previously been the Doctor's mobile (something he _insisted _ on having for one reason or another; Clara read the underlying message as having seen hers and just _really wanting one too, _but he would never admit that), now outfitted to be tracking the signatures given off by the objects of their hunt. The app – yes an app, such were the times – had been developed by an engineering team at UNIT, but they had needed the Doctor to break an encryption, and one jab too many coupled with a boast had thrown them into the hunt. The phone would never be a phone again, but it was still going with the previously programmed ringtone to notify its owner of something going on.

"We're here," the Doctor announced, jerking to a stop as his eyebrows creased dangerously low - though it was focus, not anger (hard to tell them apart at times) . "_It's _here."

Clara bumped into his shoulder, again a fault of the sudden action, before dragging him out of the main path of foot traffic and leaning on to the brick of the building they had stopped in front of. The Doctor's fingers drummed on the side of the mobile, Clara leaning on her toes to get a look at the screen herself, a movement he took notice of and lowered the phone to allow her a better view.

"I think it's...up."

The two of them stared directly up in sync upon the word being spoken, Clara shielding her eyes with her free hand at the sun, the Doctor squinting against the light. Then the _implication_ of the word clicked in her head, and Clara's eyes slid over to glare at the Time Lord.

"No."

He returned the gesture, grinning. "Oh come on."

"You're going to get _arrested_," she hissed, her hand squeezing his tighter and pulling on his arm. "Can't we just call UNIT, get one of the squads in here to do it? You know, the guys with _connections_ who _won't get arrested for pretending to be Spider-Man_."

"You're thinkin' too flashy, Clara." The Doctor threw his head back towards an alley. "Have alley, will climb. Fire escapes and what-not. Not goin' to do parkour out in the street; what am I, mad?" He paused at the face she pulled. "...Fine, don't answer that."

The Doctor tossed the phone in the air, catching it before pocketing it while taking a dramatic step back from Clara, raising their joined hands and kissing the back of hers. "Don't worry dear, I'll be careful," he teased. She rolled her eyes, shaking her arm to loosen his grip.

"Do you want me being look-out, then?"

He smiled broadly. "If you would be so kind."

She sighed, holding her gaze with his, those normally piercing blue eyes sparkling with the giddy excitement of a five-year-old. Finally her concentration broke and she knocked her fist into forehead. "Ugh, _fine, fine_ – just don't get caught like -"

"That happened _one time!_" the Doctor whined as he turned on his heel, rolling his back off the building and sliding into the alley. "You get caught _one time_ -"

"Please don't compare this to uncomfortable situations with goats," Clara called after him, and only noticed how loudly she had said it when a passing couple threw her questioning looks. She smiled nervously at the two and immediately turned her attention to whatever she pulled from her pocket – her phone, as it turned out.

There were two messages waiting for her, one text and one missed call, both from the same person. Her...dad? Seemed to be the case. There was no voicemail, so she swiped open the text message instead.

_Hello Clara. Gran and I are in town shopping today. She would very much like to see you if possible though we know you're busy._

Her dad was very proper in text messages, she had to give him that much. Clara bit her lip, fingers curling around the edge of the screen. She would've _liked _to see her grandmother again, of course, but the hunt for a puzzle piece that could allow the swallowing of the planet was rather pressing. Not only that, but the message had been from two hours ago – which wasn't surprising. Her phone had been confiscated at UNIT despite the Doctor's growls that she and it were harmless ("_we do remember Miss Oswald, Doctor, it's you we keep having to update_" the security officer had replied dully), and Clara had barely remembered to retrieve the device, let alone check it for messages, as the Doctor was off dashing through the streets on his wager-motivated hunt.

She performed her look-out duty with a one-two glance in either direction on the street, peeking down the alley to see no one was approaching, and a quick look up. Everything seemed in order, so she sighed and fired off a reply.

_Sorry, probably not today. Love to Gran. xxoo_

Clara glanced in the alley again, staring up at the roof line. She cupped a hand around her mouth, quickly shouting _"Doctor!_"

One thing she had come to figure out over the course of their adventures was the propensity for people in crowds to not notice what as going on around them. In a crowd, people didn't care to observe so long as there wasn't a disturbance in front of their destination. They wanted to get from point A to point B with as little fuss as possible, and with that came tuning out the world.

This wasn't a critique on modern Earth society, either. It happened wherever they went: whatever time, whatever place. Make a city, put beings in it, and the same thing would occur. There could be a thousand different kinds of aliens in one street and no one would care to look.

She fell into this trap herself. The Doctor only had to point out the obvious one too many times for her to realize she was just as oblivious when in a human crowd. Alien worlds were fascinating, historical times were intriguing, but regular 21st century Earth was just _normal_. The lesson, she gathered, was that if people cared to pay attention to that 'normal', they might've picked up on things from time to time.

So maybe one or two heads turned at seeing the frantic woman shouting _medical profession title!_ into an alley on that Saturday afternoon, but even if they did, no one cared to stop. Being lookout for the Doctor when he was doing something stupid was moreso for her benefit than his, because it put her mind at ease.

"Clara!"

The voice speaking her name was not the Scottish one she was expecting to next address her. Clara snapped her head back to the street, looking to her left and right before her eyebrows shot into her forehead. Serendipity had a twisted sense of humor these days, as her dad and grandmother were making their way towards her, shopping bags slung over her father's wrists.

"H – heeey..." was the only way Clara could even think to greet them. She stole another quick glance to the alley before pulling a wide-eyed smile and pocketing the mobile that had been clenched tightly in her fingers. "Gran, how are you?" she said warmly, quickly stepping closer to the elderly woman as she raised her arms for a hug.

"Lovely, just lovely," she answered. "Or you know, as much as you can be at my age." She laughed rather enthusiastically for the jab, but Clara giggled while her dad rolled his eyes in the background and fell against the building.

"And how are _you_, Dad?" Clara asked with a bit of needling in her voice. Her father rolled his head against the brick before looking over at her.

"Well you know, can't complain. I have this pesky daughter who doesn't like seeing her old man anymore now that she's an adult, but other than that – fine."

Clara grinned – an actual, proper, genuine reaction this time – before squeezing her grandmother again. "I'm sorry, it's just – things are busy."

"It's good to be busy! Dave stop harassing your daughter, you should be proud of her."

"Wha' – I am proud of her!" Mister Oswald stuck out his chin in annoyance. "Why is this turning on _me_?"

"Ignore your father dear, he's been having to escort me around all day – what are you up to today? By yourself, all alone?" Her eyes scanned quickly over her granddaughter and she frowned. "Were you mugged?"

Clara paused before actually acknowledging the question. "What."

"Your purse dear, you don't have a bag with you."

"...Oh." Like she couldn't remember how own body, Clara stole a quick glance down at herself and remembered – _no bag today_. Everything had just sort of _happened, _and moreso, she found herself wearing trousers that particular day, and all she had thought to grab was her mobile which fit in her pocket. No ID, no money, nothing else, just a phone loaded with Angry Birds. "No, um, I...don't. Do...I."

Her gran tilted her head. "Are you alright? You're not out here alone, are you?"

Oh good, a change of subject. "No, no of course not, I'm here with the Doctor. He's um...a bit busy at the moment. Just waitin' for him to come back and then we're going to -" she looked around her as casually as possible, landing eyes on a café "- have a bite to eat."

The elderly woman smiled, squeezing Clara's hands. "How are things going with you two?"

Clara's breath only hitched slightly in her throat. She hadn't really been thinking about it all that much; the Doctor was just an assumed _fact _in her life now, especially since he was in it a lot more frequently as of late. "They're going – well, I'd say. Yeah?" She hadn't intended for the questioning tone to be spoken. It was a result of the uncertainty in her own head. "He's – oh! He got a job at Coal Hill recently." She giggled at the thought before adding, "He's the new caretaker."

Her father raised an eyebrow. "Caretaker. I thought he was a doctor."

"He uh – he is."

"And...the school's caretaker."

"...Yes. It's, you know, part-time. Get to ah – be more in contact with the community."

"...As a _caretaker_."

"Oh, hush." Her dad suddenly found himself at the receiving end of a swat from her grandmother, which he overreacted to and swung his arms up for defense. Clara giggled despite herself before getting asked another question.

"You don't find that stressful then, dear? Dating a co-worker?"

Oh - _ohhhh_. Ohhh right. Keeping stories straight was a difficult thing sometimes, and Clara had completely forgotten this one about the Doctor. It wasn't even a story she had made as a cover for _him_, it was one she had made as a cover for _herself_ so she would appear slightly less pathetic to her family. _The Doctor is my boyfriend,_ she remembered. At least, that was how things had been operating. It had been months since she'd really spoken about him to her grandmother; after Christmas things were a bit of a mess and draped in a haze, and she suddenly recalled mentioning in passing that the two of them had 'patched things up' and everything was fine. But it was the sort of piece that was hard to remember when there were things like 'interstellar peace treaties' and 'twenty book reports to grade by Tuesday' playing out in her mind too.

"Well," Clara said with a smile, "it's hard to think of it that way; we were – dating before we were working together, so we have a life outside of that. And anyway, I don't see him a _whole _lot at school." She paused, remembering the times he had knocked on the windows outside her classroom to get her attention, before she eventually put a stop to that. It was silly and maybe a little annoying, but it still brought a chuckle from her. "So you know, it's not an...oversaturation."

Her dad sighed, rolling onto his shoulder against the building and frowning at his daughter. "Still a doctor though, yeah?" There was a resigned hope in his voice, one that clearly pined to say more words and one that was also hiding a certain tone of judgment.

"Yes Dad, _still a doctor_," Clara mocked, rolling her eyes at the words. "He likes to try things, that's all."

"I remember Christmas," he replied stiffly.

Oh yeah. There was _that_. Clara merely grinned apologetically, hoping to erase that whole debacle sometime in the near future.

"_Clara!_"

The voice speaking her name was the Scottish one she had been expecting the last time she had been addressed in an excited shout – though she wasn't exactly expecting it this time around, despite him being the subject of her conversation. Clara snapped her head up just in time to see the Doctor waving from over the ledge of the roof of the building, mobile in one hand, his other forming a fist that he shook. He was rather excited, though perhaps a bit too manic-looking to one not accustomed to how his face expressed things.

Then he disappeared from sight, and Clara held on to the very small, very brief thought that he was going to take the way down that he had taken to get up there – the fire escape in the alley – but that thought was all too brief and easily squashed. The next thing she knew he was vaulting over the ledge, landing on the small strip of bricks a few feet below in front of a window, immediately taking off for the ledge a story beneath, repeating the jumps twice more before he was tip-toeing the edge of a concrete box holding leafy plants above the doorway. He finally landed on the sidewalk in a crouch, arms spread, while Clara stared at him, mortified.

"You said _no parkour_, so _what do you think you're -_"

The Doctor stared up at her, an excited grin plastered to his face despite the clear distress in her words, before springing up, snapping his hands to her jaw, and cutting off her words with a quick but rather feverish kiss.

"_Found it!_" he whispered sharply into her nose, bubbling with giddiness and shaking her head slightly as he spoke. He then _giggled_, pressing his face against her cheek (because the first kiss was apparently not enough) before dropping his hands and pulling something small from his pocket. "Guess what Miss Grumpyface I get to take out for fun," he said, jostling the object – some sort of marble-looking thing, half-covered with a gold shell and with various holes drilled through it, its inside glittering with a bit too much dimension to be of Earth. Clara sucked in a breath of air before nodding and twitching her eyebrows in the direction of their audience.

The Doctor looked in the direction Clara had indicated before jumping in his spot, quickly pocketing the object while taking the hands of Clara's grandmother and politely kissing the back of one.

"It's been a while Misses Oswald," he greeted warmly. "May I just say, you look _lovely_." The shock in Clara wore off as she was hardly able to fight back the smirk that came when the Doctor decided to up his charm, his accent even thickening a touch. Her grandmother looked up at him, tilting her head slightly as her eyes searched his features.

"Clara..." her dad said, and she recognized it as his 'warning' tone. She turned her attention to him, and then to the bewildered face of her gran, before realizing:

_Oh._

_He's different from the last time they saw him._

When in a crowd, it was easy to hide and remain unobserved. It was easy to forget how people looked at you, or what they looked at, because they were too busy keeping to themselves. It was easy to forget that not everyone was a stranger. But here, when being studied by merely two pairs of eyes that had no destination and knew the person they were looking at, there was a spotlight. There could be no hiding.

"Clara...who is this?" her dad growled, though he would have to work on it a bit more to sound 'intimidating'. Not one to be dissuaded, the Doctor looked over at him before grabbing on to one of his shopping-bag-covered hands, shaking it firmly before he had a chance to pull away.

"Mister Oswald – Dave – very nice to see you again as well. How is Linda?"

"She's...fine..." He blinked deliberately before furrowing his brow. "I'm sorry – actually, no, I'm not, not the way you _attacked my daughter_ there – have we met?"

Clara was midway opening her mouth, taking in a breath, when her grandmother spoke. "Of course you have, it's the _Doctor_."

The Time Lord in question jerked his head back to her, an enthusiastic grin sweeping his face as she giggled. "Good to see you haven't forgotten me!"

"Of course not dear, not when you still owe me that game of Twister."

"Aye, I'm still for playin' if you are."

Clara slapped a hand to her face as she groaned, the pair's laughter doing nothing to ease the tension in her father's face. He stared at the group before him, utterly lost, before focusing his attention on his daughter.

"Clara..." he said slowly, taking a step forward. "This is _the Doctor_, yes?"

She averted her gaze to the ground, her ears burning as she thought of the absolute most foolish way to answer: 'Yes of _course_ this was the Doctor, how was that not obvious? Did the mere change in his appearance fool you? So he's a bit taller and suddenly Scottish and somehow even skinnier and oh by the way _looks like an owl_ – how could you have thought he was anyone _but_ the Doctor?'

"Yes," she answered plainly, avoiding elaboration.

"Clara," he repeated, taking another stride forward, past the other two who were chattering rather busily to one another. "This isn't exactly your best lie."

"Well, there's a reason I teach drama as literature and not as an art form," she said quietly, still staring at the sidewalk.

"Clara..."

She finally looked up at him, her jaw twitching as she steadied her breaths and fought back frustrated tears. One minute previous and everything had been fine. How quickly things changed.

"What. What is it, Dad?"

He raised an eyebrow, taken aback by the flatness of her words, before sighing, his shoulders slumping while he leaned in closer. "Just tell me the truth. Please."

Staring him straight in the eyes, Clara nodded, swallowing and trying to ignore the burning she was feeling rise in her face. "He's the Doctor."

And she kept her gaze locked with her father's, her eyes watering from wanting to blink and wanting to cry, but she remained unwavering. He lowered his brow and exhaled from his nose, studying his daughter's face, before his expression slowly transitioned from frustration to concern.

"...Oh Clara," he exhaled, rolling back on his heel and slumping against the building. She heaved a sigh of relief, but composed herself as he looked back at her again. "Really?" Clara nodded and he sighed again, rubbing his hand over his mouth and nose. "I don't understand you sometimes," he said on a defeated breath.

"You don't have to," she replied, pulling a smile as she prodded his shoulder. "Dad, don't worry about me with this. Just..." Clara hugged his arm. "Trust me."

"...I'm not going to lie," he said, eying the Doctor and his mother, "that's a big order."

She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Do your best to fulfill it, yeah? I know the kitchen's busy but I have faith."

Her dad smiled wearily at her before pecking her forehead. He tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear before suddenly having the shadow of the Time Lord looming over him.

"Sorry to have to leave so soon, Mister Oswald," the Doctor said, snatching up the closest hand of Clara's to him, "but we'll have to catch up later." He began dragging her away, but looked over his shoulder to continue speaking. "Love to stay and chat, really, but there's a bit of a pressin' matter and there's polar bears at stake, and a _lot_ of people like those so we'd be making a large portion of the population upset if we didn't do what we have to do – c'mon Clara, lift your feet, we need to report back in soon if I'm going to have any chance of winnin'."

Clara rolled her eyes while wiggling her hand from his initial grasp, instead interlacing her fingers between his as they picked up speed and barreled down the sidewalk once more. She looked back at her father and grandmother and waved, hoping they'd see the apologetic look on her face.

The two were consumed back into the crowds, away from any scouting, and back into being ignored. No one paid attention despite all there was to look at, and there were times Clara preferred it that way. Running into family reminded her of how different everything really was when accompanying the Doctor _now_ as opposed to _then_. It was almost like she hadn't noticed things had changed, because to her...they really hadn't.

Sometimes it was simply an easy thing to forget.


End file.
